The people and events surrounding the birth of Anabaptism

    Five hundred years ago, a monumental event in the history of the Christian church occurred. Today, the act that ignited that happening is a commonplace event that occurs regularly among our Anabaptist churches. We who are part of an Anabaptist church mostly take this regular event for granted, rarely stopping to consider how radical this practice was at its beginning, nor the price that was paid by those who began it and those who struggled in the birth pangs of that beginning. Today, it is difficult for us to comprehend the societal upheaval that this event caused. 

    On January 21, 1525, a small group of radical Christians quietly gathered in the home of Felix Mantz in Zürich, Switzerland. The rulers of Zürich had decreed that all those who had not had their infants baptized were to have them baptized or face expulsion from their homes. Conrad Grebel Felix Mantz and their friends were to be satisfied with the government’s decisions and to cease arguing and publicly disagreeing with their rulings. Also included was a demand to stop meeting together for Scriptural studies as they had been doing. And yet, here they were, meeting together again. After prayers for guidance and commitments to serve God faithfully at any cost, the rather impetuous Georg Blaurock earnestly requested that Conrad Grebel baptize him in true Christian faith, whereupon Conrad did so. The others then also requested baptism, and Georg then, in turn, baptized them. "And so, in great fear of God, together they surrendered themselves to the Lord. They confirmed one another for the service of the Gospel and began to preach the faith and to keep it. This was the beginning of separation from the world and its evil ways.”1 

    There is little doubt that the small group that gathered on that January evening five hundred years ago did not know the spiritual harvest that fraught-laden act would germinate. From that small group would spring forth a multi-generational, transnational faith that would continue for five hundred years through various times of persecution and distress, as well as peace and prosperity. Today, their spiritual descendants are spread across the globe and number in the millions. Unlike many other religions, however, this faith was not bound to the geography of its beginning. Today, the bulk of their spiritual descendants live in North America, more than four thousand miles from Switzerland, where it all began. 

    What were the circumstances that brought about this monumental event? Like other events of this magnitude, this event did not happen in a vacuum. Other events and influences always culminate in bringing about such an event. 

    One thing must be clarified before we continue any further. The name Anabaptist means “rebaptizer”. The Anabaptists rejected the authenticity of the baptism of infants and instead embraced adult believer’s baptism. Since most, if not all, were “baptized” as infants, their adult baptism was considered a second baptism by their opponents. It was a pejorative term that was applied to them by their enemies. The Anabaptists did not appreciate it, nor did they refer to themselves as such. They believed that authentic baptism must be a choice of faith by a person who understands the commitment inherent in baptism. An infant cannot possibly make an informed choice to be baptized as a personal commitment of discipleship to follow Jesus Christ. Therefore, the infant “head-wetting” they had been given as a child could not possibly constitute baptism. And so, their adult believer’s baptism was their only baptism, and it was on that basis they did not consider themselves to have been re-baptized. It is somewhat ironic that the current climate has made the mantle of "Anabaptist" more desirable than that of the names by which the sub-groups that make up the spiritual descendants of the Anabaptists have come to be known. The term “Anabaptist” was technically incorrect then and still is now. However, due to the lack of a universally accepted replacement term for Anabaptism, and with the understanding that the definitions of words and terms do evolve, we will continue to use the term Anabaptism. 

    In 1436, a German goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg invented a transformative mass communication device. Although the concept of mechanical printing was not necessarily new at the time, Gutenberg advanced the idea by utilizing a moveable type to which a screw-type press applied pressure. This dramatically improved printing, and books could be printed in increasingly higher quantities. Instead of a few books only in the hands of the wealthy, the common person could now afford to buy a few books. This broke the grip on society that the learned elites had held for centuries. It also threatened the authority of the civil government and the religious leaders of the day. This single invention and its resulting effects would help fan the flames of a political and religious revolution known today as the Protestant Reformation. The role of Gutenberg's printing press cannot be overestimated in the reshaping of European society that happened in the time of the Reformation. We can get a glimpse of this transformation of society today when we see the effects of the mass communication abilities of our electronic age. 

    The first books to be printed on the Gutenberg press were Bibles. The Holy Scriptures were used primarily by the religious authorities to keep the common people in ignorance, whereby they could be controlled and manipulated. When the common folks began to buy Bibles and read them, they could understand what God required and begin to think, reason, and debate for themselves what the Scriptures really meant. And by violent means in the Peasants War and by non-violent means in adult believer's baptism, they began to throw off the chains of religious oppression that had kept them in spiritual darkness. 

    While the Gutenberg printing press was a primary influence in the Reformation, what was the catalyst that sparked that religious and cultural upheaval? 

    “On a crisp October night in 1517, the thirty-first to be exact, a black-garbed Augustinian monk made his way undetected to the castle church. The place was an insignificant medieval German town named Wittenburg. With swift, determined strokes, he nailed one of the most inflammable documents of the age to the church door, which served as the village bulletin board. Within a fortnight, all of Europe was echoing the sound of that auspicious hammer. A month later, the hardly audible taps became sledgehammer blows assailing the very citadel of the Roman Catholic Church. For the Augustinian friar of that October night was Martin Luther, and the apparently innocent manuscript was his first fusillade against Rome, the Ninety-five Theses.”2

    Martin Luther, as a young man, appeared to be headed toward a promising career in the practice of law, but a “thunderstorm experience” struck such terror in him that he vowed to become a monk if God spared his life. His life was spared, and he joined the Erfurt faction of the Augustinian order. A trip to Rome to appeal a papal decision was fruitless and seemed to begin his path of disillusionment with the Roman Catholic Church. Then, in 1517, Johann Tetzel began traveling around selling indulgences. Tetzel promoted the indulgences by making the claim that purchasing them would actually buy forgiveness of sins. This drove Luther to write the 95 Theses and to post them in opposition to this un-Biblical practice. It would appear that Luther intended this to be the beginning of a discussion rather than the inflammatory act of rebellion that it became. With the use of the printing press, these 95 Theses spread quickly through Germany and surrounding Europe. Eventually, that led to Luther's excommunication from the Catholic Church. The spark that Luther had struck began to burn and soon became a raging inferno that spread throughout that day's religious and political world. 

    Martin Luther took a more serious approach to Scripture than the Roman Catholic Church at large, but eventually, he began to compromise some of his positions. In 1523, he said in a sermon that “a separation of the church from the indifferent masses was necessary.”3 However, due to opposition from the state and disappointment in the lack of spirituality from the church people around him, he never fully embraced the concept of a church separate from the world and the state. 

    Meanwhile, in Canton Zürich, Switzerland, a young priest named Ulrich Zwingli was appointed the people’s priest (head pastor) of the Grossmünster in the city of Zürich. Zwingli had been studying the New Testament for several years and embarked on several series of German-language sermons directly from the New Testament, complete with practical applications. In 1520, he secured the permission of the Zürich City Council to preach whatever could be substantiated from Scripture but not deviate from the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Zwingli's reliance on the city council's authority and his reluctance to go against their constraints was soon to cause a significant fracture that led to the birth of the Anabaptist movement. 

    Zwingli soon gained a following of enthusiastic young men who were intent on reading and studying Scripture. Among this group were some of the future leaders of the Anabaptist movement. With the influence of Zwingli’s leadership and preaching, Zürich eventually withdrew from the Roman Catholic Church and established a Protestant state church in its place. Other needed reforms also began to take shape. 

    However, as time went on, it became obvious to Zwingli’s young followers that he was only willing to go as far and as fast as the Zurich council would permit. Cracks in the relationship between the young “radicals” and Zwingli developed and finally broke after the Disputation of 1523. This disputation was held to determine what was to be done with the practice of the Mass. Zwingli and his "radical" group of followers agreed that the Mass was not Scriptural. The Council, however, refused to permit the abolition of the Mass. At the debate, Conrad Grebel, the leader of this group of young men, stated, "The one thing necessary before all else is the abolition of the Mass."4 Zwingli replied that the Council would decide how the churches should proceed. Simon Stumpf, priest of nearby Höngg, famously declared, “Master Ulrich, you have not the right to leave the decision of the question to the Council. The matter is already decided; the Spirit of God decides it.”5

    The complete break between Zwingli and what was to become the Swiss Brethren did not happen at that moment, but the groups certainly embarked on a diverging course that would only widen as time went on. Was the authority of the church only from God? Or was the state to be an authority above the church to act almost in the form of a priest between God and the church? At this point, Zwingli decided to accept the authority of the state over the church. Conrad Grebel and his friends continued to insist that the church is answerable to God alone. 

    Between the Second Disputation and the baptismal disputations in late 1524/early 1525, Grebel and his group suggested to Zwingli that the believers (Reformation supporters) should establish a separate church composed only of committed Christians (who, they were convinced, would be most of the population). They would apparently be the only ones allowed to vote, and thus they would replace the City Council with their own people who would then enforce the Zwinglian reforms. 

    Zwingli rejected this suggestion, saying that the church was and always would be a mixture of wheat and tares. By late 1524, Grebel and his group progressed further in their ecclesiology, realizing that only a minority of people would ever live as committed Christians, and that they would be without political power and would not wield the sword. This minority, separatist believer's church would be kept pure by the twin practices of believers' baptism (front door) and church discipline/excommunication (back door) to guard the purity of the Lord's Supper. 

    That was the background of their growing insistence on believer's baptism. Believer's baptism reestablished the church afresh, as a separatist minority committed to discipleship and maintaining the purity of Christian ordinances. 

    The debate of 1525 regarding infant baptism resulted in the Council ordering the immediate baptizing of all babies that had not yet been baptized. The Council also decreed that "it is further decided that the mandate shall be executed, and henceforth the special schools that deal with such matters shall be discontinued and Conrad Grebel and Mantz shall be told henceforth to desist from their arguing and questioning and be satisfied with [the council’s] judgments; for no more disputations will be permitted hereafter.”6

    The die was cast. The crossroad lay immediately ahead. The young “radicals” could submit to the city council and abandon their beliefs regarding the church's authority. Alternatively, they could flee from Zürich or disobey the Council and accept the consequences, whatever they might be. They chose the latter, and Anabaptism was born with Blaurock’s baptism of Grebel on January 21, 1525. Their ideal of a separated church with voluntary membership committed to following the Scriptures and living in holiness and righteousness had finally been realized. 

    Oh, but what a price would be paid for that fateful decision! Truly the blood of the martyrs became the seed of the church as many gave their lives for the “crimes” of refusing to have their babies baptized, the act of adult believer’s baptism, their refusal to use the sword, their missionary zeal to convert souls to the kingdom of Christ, their rejection of the authority of the state church and civil government in the affairs of the church, and even their high standard of holy living. 

    One of the distinct differences between the Anabaptists and the other churches of their day was their belief that a saving faith must produce a life of holy works; otherwise, it could not be a saving faith. Conrad Grebel wrote, “The teaching of the Lord has been given for the purpose of being put into practice.”8 If they had kept their beliefs in their heads without actually practicing them, the authorities of that day would have had no problem with them. 

    We today have been richly blessed with the heritage that we have received from the Swiss Brethren who were derisively called Anabaptists. Their fateful decision at the crossroads has given us an example of faith and practice that we can learn from. May we not squander the heritage we have been given. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage (Psalm 16:6).

Morgantown, PA

Footnotes: 

The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, page 45

The Anabaptist Story, page 8

Mennonites in Europe, page 26

Ibid, page 34

Ibid, pages 34-35

The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism, page 336

Conrad Grebel, Son of Zurich, page 118